Since we got here, we've walked about ten miles a day. I never used to be a walker. In fact, I never used to leave the house if I could help it. I have, however, always liked the countryside, though more as something to be looked at and admired from behind a window, than as something to get deeply and messily involved in.


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- How was your week?
- Full of wild dreams.
- Like what?
- The other night there was a man in a pram.
- A man in a pram?
- Not a big one; I think it was a doll’s pram.
- So maybe that’s about you wanting control.
- He wasn’t my man in a pram; he was just there, talking.

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He had stood at the crossroads at the tender age of seventeen where, as predicted, he had received his first criminal record. He could have walked to the left and stayed on its disastrous path, ending up just another statistical drain on today’s society. But he chose the path to the right, working hard to reclaim his dignity and self respect. He cherished this path, gaining a rewarding job, loving girlfriend and loyal friends. He awoke on the day of his 22nd birthday not knowing that today he would be honoured a hero. Today he would rescue the life of a young child from a burning building sacrificing his own life in the process.

The woman is in earnest expressive conversation with a companion sitting opposite. Or rather, most of her is. Her forehead doesn’t budge even as her arms gesticulate and her mouth mouths words that I can’t quite hear. She is certainly striking, dressed completely in black and with an impressive bouffant of wild curly hair that elevates her height by a good ten inches. From her skin tone, her lips, the slight impression of jowls just starting to melt from her jaw line, I estimate that she is maybe in her mid fifties. Except for her forehead, which, shiny and smoothly isolated in its own age zone, is just beginning to breech its early twenties.


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So I decided to try out a new pub restaurant. It's opening had been delayed by 15 months so it must be good, surely? Inside the decor was fantastic, but the bar staff were not. 'Ignore them', I told myself. Outside the kids had more than enough room to play and the activities covered everything from swings and slides to climbing frames and trampolines. So we ordered while the kids wore themselves out. Two dinners turned up and ten minutes later I had to ask where the other three were. Eventually they arrived. My sons cheeseburger and morphed into a plain hamburger and both his and my daughters chicken dish were dryer than the sahara desert. My parents were not much better either. Mine on the other hand was lovely and freshly cooked. None of being a family of complainers, we ate and just giggled to each other. 25 minutes after the dishes were collected from the table did we enquire to the childrens desserts to which the young waitress replies "Oh, we was not sure if you were ready for them yet!" I don't think I will be returning.

If you do you should go to the splendid Dogmatika, where my story Lists has just gone live.

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I’ve taken the cat’s attention and she’s stunned; one of my long hairs had curled itself on her hip. I am a loose woman and my hairbrush is like a road-sweeper. Old is catching up; I’m slowing down, almost a snail, an underwater creature. But, I am entirely happy – my dreams are returning and staying.

Someone said something on a debate show the other morning about people being miserable; all the phone-in chat was about how bad the world is and how they couldn’t get over the depressing negativity that it could never have a good ending.

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Sadly, my parents were burgled earlier this week. Amazingly, we all know it was the boy next door. Suprisingly the police marched him round to my mums house in an unofficial line up for my sister, who interupted his spree, to identify. Unfortunately she couldn't. Luckily, he only got away with £180 and did not hurt my mums dog.

Having failed my ovulation test, and having not achieved some new level of deep spiritual awareness about a newly-created life inside me, I decided this morning that I definitely wasn't pregnant so spent the day on the beach getting sloshed.

This, I confess, is one of my favourite ways to pays the time. I do it often. Not shamefully often, but often enough. I consider my inability to stop drinking after one glass of wine an inherited trait, much like being short. Asking me to give it up would be like expecting me to acquire supermodel levels of tallness when I am already fully grown.


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I'm still floating, still grinning to myself, scaring the cats, still wondering what on earth this all means, how to integrate it into my life. I have asked some trusted advisers for their advice, regarding an agent for example. This makes me more attractive, right? (In publishing-speak only!). Even if I am that dreaded short-story-writer-no-not-planning-to-write-a-novel! But I would like to have an agent, someone interested in my writing, someone nudging me a little every now and then, someone who knows what the next steps might be. There is so much here that is a mystery to me. When I tell people I studied physics, they look at me with wonder, as if it is another planet whose language is known only to the select few. Well, I feel that way about the publishing industry: I don't know the culture, don't know the signs and symbols. A great agent is a translator, explaining what certain gestures mean, what the words and phrases stand for. I would be very happy to have that in my life. Will keep you updated.

In the meantime, a few deadlines for you:

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